General

- The default hotkey to toggle in-game music on/off has been reverted to its hotkey prior to Patch 1.3.0. The hotkey to display APM in the observer stat panel has been changed as a result.

Balance

PROTOSS

Archon

- Now a Massive unit.
- Range increased from 2 to 3.

Cybernetics Core

- Research Warp Gate research time increased from 140 to 160.

Gateway

- Sentry train time decreased from 42 to 37.
- Warp Gate unit train times remain unchanged.

Pylon

- Pylon power radius has been decreased from 7.5 to 6.5.

TERRAN

Bunker

- Salvage resource return reduced from 100% to 75%.

Ghost

- Cost changed from 150/150 to 200/100.

Thor

- Thor now has 200 max energy, and starts with 50 energy.
- 250mm Strike Cannons now cost 150 energy to use (cooldown removed).

ZERG

Infestor

- Speed decreased from 2.5 to 2.25.

Spore Crawler

- Root time decreased from 12 to 6.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed an issue where Ghosts could not quickly EMP the same location.
- Fixed an issue that allowed players to stack air units when issuing a queued stop command before the units reached the end of their patrol point.
- Fixed an issue where unplugging your USB headset while another player was talking to you could cause a crash.
- Fixed an issue where the APM statistic could be artificially increased.
- Fixed an issue where 3D unit portraits were not animating smoothly at slow game speeds.
- Fixed an issue where, when viewing a replay, no text message was displayed when a player left a game.
- The Taiwanese hotkey to display/hide the game UI while in Observer mode now works correctly.

Blizzard officially released three of the four Custom Maps they announced at Blizzcon for SCII.

Aiur Chef is a game where you have three rounds to compete against the other players, gathering ingredients across the map and fighting each. The person who nets the most points from making the most recipes wins. The voice acting in this one is pretty damn funny.

StarJeweled is a puzzle/tug of war game. The screen is divided in two, with StarCraft units battling it out on the left, and a puzzle game on the right. You need to switch pieces around while forming chains of 3 or more pieces in order to gain energy, which can be spent on more powerful units and for casting spells.

Left 2 Die is the last one that has been released at this time. It is essentially the campaign mission Outbreak, but with some stronger enemies and an another player slot for an ally.

The last unreleased map is StarCraft II Defense of The Ancients (DoTA, as it’s known on WarCraft III), which will be a team game that pits heroes from Blizzard games against eachother in a hack and slash RPG nature.

Interestingly, the first 3 maps mentioned above which have been released have a new incentive to get players to try them out: Achievements. There’s a ton of achievement points to be racked up playing these custom games. There’s also 3 new Portraits:

You can earn the Zealot Chef from Aiur Chef by making each of the three recipes each round (Easy way to do this is to play with a friend.). Ornatus is earned from StarJeweled by casting the spell Healing Wave enough times to have healed 3,000 HP in one game (You can do this by playing against a friend or an easy computer. If you feel your units are overpowering them, Psi Storm your own units to keep the game going.). And the last portrait is the Stank (Sorry, I haven’t earned it just yet), which is a “Special Infected” from the Left 2 Die map. You need to kill one without losing any units (People recommend Siege tanks behind a Planetary Fortress wall.). Good Luck!

Since we’re in the middle of April already our newest Poll will run until the end of May.

The results of our old poll are below.

 Loading ...

I’m glad people have been enjoying the maps on there. There are a lot of fun ones that I’m impressed with too.

Our newest poll asks which Blizzard Custom Map you like that most.

 Loading ...

Patch 1.3.1

Bug Fixes

- Fixed an issue where, in some situations, players would not be notified they received an achievement.

- Fixed an issue where the Leagues & Ladders showcase boxes were not updated correctly.

- Fixed an issue where, under certain circumstances, the “Return to Game” button in the main menu would not function properly.

- Fixed an issue where the new observer UI features would not function correctly on custom maps.

Patch 1.3.2

Bug Fixes

General

- Fixed an issue where maps would not appear in the Single Player vs. AI screen (China only).
- Fixed an issue where the Leagues & Ladders Friends page would stop displaying information if a player had more than 100 ranked friends.
- Fixed a crash that would sometimes occur when players received an alert in-game while 3D portraits were turned on.

StarCraft II Editor

- Fixed a crash that could occur on Editor startup if players had improperly configured variables.
- Fixed an issue where the Editor would display incorrect cliff height on ramps facing directly N, S, E or W; this issue prevented proper unit vision in game.
- Fixed an issue where the pathing visualizer in the Terrain Editor would sometimes display incorrect pathing.

General

Leagues & Ladders

- A new Grandmaster League has been added for 1v1 ladders. This league represents the Top 200 players in each region.
- Players are automatically drafted into the Grandmaster League shortly after a new season starts, and will remain in the Grandmaster League until the end of the season. If a Grandmaster player’s available bonus points get too high due to inactivity, they will be automatically removed from the league and a replacement player will be drafted in.
-The Grandmaster League can be viewed by all players through the new Leagues & Ladders > Grandmaster page.
- The bonus pool has been reduced for arranged teams.
- Leagues will now be locked during the final weeks of the season. As a result players will not accumulate additional bonus points and will not be promoted or demoted out of their current division during this period.
- This will allow players to focus on moving up in their current league without being promoted during the final weeks of a season, and having to fight their way up from the bottom ranks of their new higher league.
- Players can still utilize any bonus points they previously accumulated.
- Ladder data from the prior season can be viewed through the new Leagues & Ladders > Last Season page.
- New league icons have been introduced to indicate division rank. These will indicate the Top 8, 25 and 50 players in each division.
- Loss counts are no longer displayed in Profile and Ladder pages for players below Master League.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed an issue that prevented players from loading in-mission campaign saves created while patched at version 1.2.0.

*Note* As a result of this fix, in-mission campaign saves created while patched at version 1.2.1 will no longer be usable.